ThatCamp Philadelphia 2014: How Can The Digital Humanities Inform The Work Of Scholarly Communication?

Janine Utell had proposed this session, but she was unable to attend so I served as moderator in her place.

  • DHNow http://digitalhumanitiesnow.org/

  • Faculty need to publish in peer reviewed journals for tenure

    • This is weird to say because it implies that open access journals are not peer reviewed. This is propaganda coming from somewhere and I am troubled every time I hear it.

  • Copyright hurdles on campus

  • Do you have a data management plan?

  • Differences between teaching schools and research schools

  • Haystack is helpful source for DH stuff

  • Funding opportunities can be opened up via the digital humanities and open access

  • The R1/University experience generally feels like a different universe from the one I live in that I want nothing to do with.

    • The idea of paying $1,000 to make an article open access is one of the most offensive ideas I have ever encountered.

    • What about class issues and working with various populations if there is a need for cash to access information?

    • That is elitist universities and publishers declaring war on the lower classes access to information.

ThatCamp Philly: Digital Literacy

After running a discussion on working with students who have low technology skills at the first ThatCamp Philly, I ended up on a panel discussing general digital literacy. There was a very productive discussion by attendees, which included friends like Rebecca Goldman and Janine Utell.
  • 55% of households in Philadelphia lack internet access.
  • 550, 000 individuals in Philadelphia are considered low literate.
  • A lot of questioning of the "digital natives" myth.
  • Students often do not realize they need to know technology to take an online class.
  • Digital literacy issues often combine with *literacy* issues.
  • Many employers do not have paper applications. Now what? Jobs do not have time/resources to train.
  • I have had students cite from Yahoo Answers.
  • An idea to survey students' technology skills.
  • Revolving door of adjuncts means repeated training.
  • All humanities classes should have lab component.
  • Everyone keeps talking about digital natives!
  • How do we get expectations to line up?
  • Generational differences in how technology is used could be part of this...Rachel gives example of Using Google Street Maps in class and students being blown away by it.
  • Jazmin does work with a library "tech van" to teach citizens how to use email, Office, etc
  • Students don't know how to do research for transferring to colleges...
  • Often digital literacy can be connected to *literacy* issues...
  • 550,000 adults in Philadelphia are "low literate" (half the population of adults!!!)
  • Connecting service learning to literacy and digital literacy
  • Jobs don't want paper applications
  • You have to have baseline of programmatic literacy or you're just not going to get the job
  • A lot of our returning students are not tech savy
  • Computers can be used to create literacy
  • Surveys for what they use on desktop and phone 
  • Add what browser you use to survey
  • Students often form web searches as questions!
  • Discussion of relationships with libraries
  • Freshman Comp students required at multiple schools to attend a library session...
  • Issues with adjuncts not being "invested" in programs to add this stuff...
  • Yahoo Answers can be solved with better understanding of credible sources...take a day to discuss them specifically...
  • Yahoo Answers is not New York Times is not Science
  • Rebecca: Why do they need scholarly sources!?!
  • Research project as a treasure hunt!
  • Grammar, syntax, protocols, of digital literacy
  • Discussion of what is required for K-12 programs...
  • Students frightened by changing thesis as research goes on
  • Rebecca: Students come to her already written paper and looking for sources afterwards...
  • Have empirical library days in Comp II and/or Lit classes
  • Another call for digital literacy across the curriculum
  • Having, besides the four papers, allowing students do pick and choose platforms for assignments (150 points)
  • By presentation day, must have sources that need to be DEFENDED
  • A big change these days is students don't have to learn how to code/wysiwyg 
  • List of approved sources for papers (make using these part of rubric)
  • Rebecca: students have to do background research first before expert research
  • search involves failure!!!

ThatCamp Philadelphia: Working With Students Who Have Low Technology Skills

After my initial panel proposal was accepted, I ran this panel on working with students who have low technology skills as the opening panel for ThatCamp Philadelphia. I wanted to run this panel because this is an issue I deal with on a day to day basis and I am always trying to find new ways to initiate learning for my students. Technology skills are extremely important in this job market, so I really stress them in my classes.

Janine Utell took notes for this panel as well.

  • Digital citizenship is important. Not just for student work, but also for the job force (applications, etc)
  • Many participants noted that their students had a hard time interpreting what they found online. An example given a lot was clicking on “sponsored links” on a Google search.
  • Some schools offer a one credit technology course (that can be tested out of by students)
  • Library sessions are helpful, but more time needs to be spent on evaluating sources
  • This whole “digital natives” thing is nonsense. Many students don’t even know how to use ctrl-f!
  • Solutions to this need to come from the curriculum side, not just the classroom
  • An issue brought up, and I have heard this from students, is going from high tech classes back to really analog ones
  • A list needs to be made, on a school by school basis, of what students need to know for composition level technology skills
  • A big requirement that should be built into school handbooks is mandating that they check their email
  • There should be “technology across the curriculum” ala writing across the curriculum
  • An idea Sherrie Block and I have talked about here at BCC is doing workshops for students on a monthly basis.
  • There was a large concern in the room to not just outsource all of this to the library
  • I require my students to send me an email from their BCC email to prove they can open it and that it works. I use this for their first quiz grade
  • Another great idea that happens in my classes anyway is to have high tech students team up with low tech students
  • Walmart has computer only applications now. If you can’t figure it out, you can’t apply
  • New Jersey does have a K-12 information literary requirement according to Deb Gussman
  • There needs to be outreach to local principals/superintendents
  • Have students do a tech survey on their way into college
  • Gussman gives her online students a list of what they need to know before taking the class
  • I’ve introduced Zotero to my sophomores in the past
  • An idea I had was to have to students put programs like Zotero, Firefox, Google Chrome, etc on a flash drive using Portable Apps
  • Students absolutely need to learn how to cite before being allowed to use Easybib, Zotero, Moodle, etc
  • As Deb Gussman points out, Easybib, Zotero, Evernote and others output errors sometimes
  • An idea Utell had was to do coffee sessions with faculty who could be allies

There are so many great ideas here. I am forwarding this post to my Dean and program director because there is so much we could implement into our program.

ThatCamp Philadelphia: Digital Humanities Integration Into Regular Literature Classrooms

The final session I attended at ThatCamp Philadelphia was run bu Janine Utell on integrating the digital humanities into regular literature classrooms.

  • Amanda French defines the digital humanities as “open access”
  • How can student work be put online? WordPress, PBWorks, etc
  • Digital Humanities Quarterly given as example of open access
  • Should give students option to take down work at the end of the semester
  • I am going to try out commonplace blogs with my eng102 classes next semester
  • Utell: Digital humanities is essential to keeping the humanities alive
  • Some discussion about establishing comment policies
  • Crowd sourcing comment policy to students
  • Peer review is important before work goes online
  • Instructor comments on blogs tapers off as semester goes on
  • French and Siobhan Phillips bring out Google’s ngrams, wordles
  • I’ve had students A/B an Obama speech to a Jefferson speech
  • More incorportation of audio, video, etc into literary classes
  • Modernist Journals Project
  • Amanda French stresses the need to teach bibliographic software like Noodle, Evernote, and Zotero

ThatCamp Philadelphia: Digital Scholarship & The Unpress

A newer member of the Stockton family, Adeline Koh, ran a session on digital scholarship that was equally interesting and very engaging. Being off of the tenure track, and not at a university, I had a different perspective than some others brought to it. Others like Amanda French, who aren’t teaching right now, brought a unique perspective as well.

  • Ulyssesseen.com is an app for Ulysses. Cool.
  • Big question about whether digital publications count towards tenure.
  • Kathleen Fitzpatrick’s Planned Obselence and Shakespeare Quarterly’s move to open peer review are brought up.
  • Deb Gussman asks for a definition of what “open access” means.
  • Cost and institutional support are important.
  • Siobhan Phillips asks about differences in cost between open and closed peer review.
  • How much worth do you get out of a two year process for a scholarly journal?
  • I blurt out “very little!”
  • Amanda French asks at what point in the process should peer review come in?
  • Creating an epub is so easy now. I need to create an epub/mobi of my MA thesis.
  • Amanda also mentioned Press Forward.
  • Deb about two big factors in self publication…moving from format to format and lessening interest over time…
  • Siobhan Phillips had a great idea about having organizations in various fields creating open access bibliographies.
  • Discipline loyalties are more important than institutional loyalties.
  • Because I am not on tenure track, I definitely have different relationships to these issues than others in the room. I mentioned that I don’t feel comfortable publishing in something that couldn’t easily be accessed by my grandparents and there was definitely some amused looks. Whatever. I’d rather people have access to my work than worry about being “legitimate” or whatever.
  • Gussman wonders if outside tenure review can be applied to peer review? Digital Humanities Quarterly already does I believe.
  • Amanda and I discussed the impact of self published or open access published works. We both get comments, emails, and know where readers are coming from.
  • Janine Utell: Decide what your career could look like and make best case you can.

Adeline's notes on the white board. 

A good shot of some of the room including Siobhan, Deb, Adeline, and my TweetDeck. 

Amanda and Adeline listen to Janine Utell speak near the end of the session.

ThatCamp Philadelphia: An Overview

A few weeks ago, I had the great pleasure of attending ThatCamp Philadelphia at Chemical Heritage in Philadelphia. After getting a little lost (4th and Chestnut was closed for a protest), I made it to the conference and found out that the session I proposed a few days before had been picked. I really appreciate that, despite not being there, people still voted for my session. I met up with old friends like Amanda French (lots of ohhhs and ahhh when she mentions she is ThatCamp coordinator), Deb Gussman (10 years ago, she was my first literature professor and now she is attending my panels. Wow.), and John Theibault and settled in at the conference, which had very impressive coffee. I also met longtime Twitter friend Janine Utell and became acquainted at lunch with very awesome people like Siobhan Phillips and Rebecca Goldman and Adeline Koh, a new friend from the Stockton family.

(although I wish I could have been at lunch with John and Amanda because I hear they discussed Edna St. Vincent Millay, one of my favorite poets)

The main meeting room was packed by the time I got to the conference. I got a little lost on the way towards 4th street because of traffic being blocked by a protest march. Google Maps on my phone, run through my speakers, really saved me. 

I spent a lot of time during the day with Amanda French, who is That Camp Coordinator (oohhh, aahhh). 

One of the most interesting aspects of this unconference was how good the coffee is at Chemical Heritage. 

The day was planned via a series of poster boards.